March 1010 a.m.

I strolled along the beach just now to Mazatlán's Zona
Dorada. An hour's stroll it was. I liked the pelicans
strafing the breakers. I liked the sandpipers fleeing the
wavelets on their tiny twig-like legs.

I squatted on the beach mid-way through my stroll and
munched two apples bought yesterday in Mazatlán's downtown
market. I enjoyed some pan dulce, too. I bought the pan
dulce in a panaderia situated between my hotel and the beach.
Two warm soft rolls lightly dusted with sugar.

Four years ago I sunburned on that beach.

I woke to an intoxicating air this morning. That same
intoxicating air that always made it hard for me to rise
early in San Diego. A heavy air, it is, but effervescent.
Fresh and cool. Like spring, it is. You drink it down in
drafts.

I sit in a VIPs now over a grail of coffee. I'm about to
transfer onto looseleaf the notes I jotted into my paperback
copy of As You Like It. It will be easier to manage the
notes then, to consider them. First though I wanted to
scribble these comments on the beach stroll. It was a
pleasant amble, nourishing. And for some reason it reminded
me of Hemingway's The Garden of Eden. Don't know why. I
read that book some seven or eight years ago. Only lately
has its title meant anything to me. But posthumously
published, it was. The title might not even be his. The
Garden of Eden. The perfect environment for the artist.
Just the right stimuli for creation.

I'm back on the beach now. I've encamped in a semi-
circular area cordoned off by a very expensive hotel. But I
have light brown hair. And the hotel caters to foreigners.
And no one saw me step over the cordon. They think I belong.

I took a beach chair at the very perimeter of the roped
area. No one else lounges out here yet. I can decamp without
bothering anyone if the place fills up.

There is a thin rail of a man down the beach blowing a
trumpet. A squat man next to him beats at a bass drum. The
racket, I'm afraid, is not very musical.

I crawled through a hole cut in a chainlink fence to get
to this beach. Four years ago that fence did not exist. The
beach guard was breakfasting at a taco stand down the shore.
He shouted something at me. I pretended not to hear him. I
continued on. I knew he would not follow.

A large foreigner just took a chaise-lounge a few spots
over from my chair. His carcass is almost cetacean--giant,
round, white. His wife reclines next to him under a flat-
brimmed reed hat. I bet they paid a healthy sum for this
spot on the beach. I nod at the woman. She smiles languidly.

Every ambulant vendor that passes this cordoned area
solicits me. It's because I occupy this extreme edge, I
guess. It's because I seem unoccupied, I guess. Belts,
sandals, hats, sunglasses, coconuts with straws sticking out
of them. I will read a little now, I guess, review my As You
Like It notes.

A hotel waiter just came and went. Una margarita? he
offered. Una cerveza? he offered. Too early for me, I
answered. Maybe later.

6 p.m.

I wanted to be sure the woman on the beach was looking
at me before I approached her. And she looked again. And she
looked again. But it was possible she was not looking at me.
It was possible instead that that turn of her head, that fall
of her eyes was just natural. I could not be sure. I could
not know. I sat dithering. I wavered between possibilities.
What should I do? Should I approach the woman and her
friend? Might it be an invitation? Should I accept? But
how good it would be to talk to someone! After yesterday it
would be very good to talk to someone! So I mounted an
assault on my timidity. I essayed to put down that nausea of
shyness. I coached myself that no better moment would come.
The two of them were sunning their backs. The two of them
were propped up on their elbows. They would see my approach.
They would not be surprised by my approach. And so,
swallowing my heart, mentally crossing myself with two
fingers, I pulled myself up out of my chair. I stepped over
the cordon. And I forced myself to approach the two beautiful
women. They saw me coming. They were not surprised when I
plopped down next to them. They definitely now looked at me.

I asked, "You guys from the United States?" For I had
heard them speaking English as I neared.

They shook their heads.

"No?!" And I was taken aback. The English I had heard
sounded very American.

One said, "We're from Canada." And of the two it was
this one speaking to whom your eyes naturally gravitated.
Very dark tan. Bright red bikini. Very blonde hair. But
there was a note of feigned innocence in her tone. A note of
fakery. And the second girl, though less arresting, had a
natural elegance, a more feminine grace. You saw it even as
she lie there: in the pose of her hands, in the tilt of her
head. Her hair was a rich brown and short. Her skin pale and
olive. It was this second girl who had looked at me--possibly.

We exchanged the platitudes of travel. Origins,
destinations, impressions. Medical secretaries, they were,
from British Columbia, on vacation.

"So you just move around?" the blonde one pursued,
without judgment, lightly. "...to wherever?"

"Yeah," I said. "I just move around. But..." And I
paused. "But it's not without purpose."

And the blonde one shook her head. She shook her head as
if to say: "Oh, no. Of course, not!"

And here I mentioned my scribblings. I mentioned what
this traveling meant to my unfinished novel. I mentioned how
this traveling would itself one day be my second novel. I
mentioned, too, how just yesterday I had experienced
something that in ten years of traveling Mexico I had never
before experienced. I tried then to go on. I tried to
describe the confrontation on the bus. But after the first
few sentences both of the women cooled. They changed the
subject icily. They did this twice. They did not want to
hear. I gave up the tale. And then...and then I could find
nothing more to say. I'm a great failure at small talk. I
drifted into a stammer. I silenced.

The second woman, Stephanie, turned over to sun her
stomach. The first woman, the blonde one, soon did the same.
It seemed to me body language. They seemed to say, "Okay,
you can go now." And so I did. I said, "Well, thanks for
being nice to me." They answered with gentle "Nice-to-meet-
yous" and other comfortless words. I stood. I trudged back
to my beach chair. I stepped over the cordon. I sank into my
beach chair. I felt empty there, suddenly, in my beach
chair--vacant. I looked at the women. Face up in the sun
they still lie, eyes closed. I looked at Stephanie's chin.
I considered how well-turned was Stephanie's chin. A chin
with character, it was. But I did not like the words "with
character." So I went on probing for a single word that
would suggest "with character." But I could not find such a
word. I still cannot. So I contemplated my attraction to
Stephanie. And in my contemplations I saw how inaccessible
Stephanie seemed to me suddenly. But everything seemed
inaccessible to me suddenly. Everything. Distant. Alien.
Far away. Estranged. I told myself I was numb. I told
myself I'd been deadened by this journey. But it's later now
and still the sensation persists. Hermetic, I feel. Nothing
can touch me. Not this pen I wiggle. Not this light I work
by. I've been swallowed by some great slimy beast, I think.
Some great green leviathan has ascended from some nameless
depth to swallow me. I've been emboweled.

And now, at this small desk in this cramped hotel room,
I see myself meeting Stephanie tomorrow in the lobby of her
expensive hotel. I escort her to the nearby VIPs. As we
walk she asks me if I have yet scribbled of her as I told her
I would. I answer that yes I have scribbled of her; but that
no, no I have not. I explain that I am something of an
equilibrist, and that my safety net is words, and that
sometimes I fall from my tightrope, but that sometimes my
words let me slip through them, slip towards the abyss. I
tell her that I scribbled of her in this way. And I say, "I
had to approach you. Thank you for not dismissing me." And I
lean back now and look up into the ceiling of my room. And
the ceiling fan is spinning. And the ceiling fan is
spinning. Coming apart. Coming together. Falling away.

Today I sat next to two pretty women in the Zona Dorada
sands of Mazatlán. Today I conversed with two pretty women
about things that meant little. As I conversed with the two
pretty women I watched the words they spoke leave their lips.
The words would leave their lips and then make very long
journeys toward me. The words would enter me from very far
away. Then the words would travel down a long dark corridor.
As the words traveled, through the whole span of their
journey, I would hear and watch the words. I would study the
words. I would think about the words. I would deliberate
their meanings. Then the words would finally arrive.
Internally, I would respond. Then the process would begin
again, but in reverse. And my words would make their long
journeys outward. And at last I would speak the words. And
at last the exchange would become complete. And at last the
exchange would begin again.